A Wolf Made Of Stone
by Lady of Bones
Summary: (Spoilers up to the end of Feast for Crows) Robert Arryn has died. Sansa attends his funeral and bids him a final farewell.


Alayne's thick cloak billowed around her ankles as the wind blew. It echoed between the tops of the mountains, making a mournful sound, as though the Vale itself were grieving for the dead Robert Arryn. Although it was still cold so high in the mountains, a slight thaw had allowed them to bury their dead Lord. It was a pitifully small coffin, thought Alayne; Robert Arryn had been so young, and small and sickly besides. He was no more an imposing figure in death than he had been in life. Alayne was thankful that the lid of the coffin was closed over the boy's corpse; it had been too cold to bury the little Lord for several days after his death, and Lord Baelish had decided not to subject the mourners to their Lord's ripening.

There were few enough mourners. Alayne stood a respectful distance away from the burial, as befit the natural daughter of a lowly Lord. Petyr Baelish, as the new Lord Protector of the Vale, stood closer, though not so close as to arouse the anger of the Lords Declarant, who stood stony-faced and grim. Alayne watched the back of Lord Baelish as the septon chanted his prayers.

The septon's prayers were familiar to Alayne. She thought of a girl who had once prayed with her mother, a stranger to the barren North. _That was a different girl_, she thought. _A girl who lived a thousand years ago. _Alayne was a bastard girl with brown hair and no mother. Alayne had no brothers, and no sister, and had never lived in Winterfell.

Alayne had never prayed with her mother, but she found herself praying all the same. She prayed that the Gods would give her Sweetrobin a peace he had never known in life; he had always been weak, and plagued by the shaking sickness that had eventually killed him. He had only been worse after his mother had been killed by Lord Baelish. _No, _thought Alayne. _I'm mistaken; the singer, Marillion, he killed Lady Lysa. _Sweetrobin had cried every night that the singer sang from his sky cell. Alayne had cried, too; she had pressed her face into the pillow to block out the singer's sad voice, but it had carried so clearly on the wind that it had been as though Marillion had been in her chambers. She had been almost glad when he had finally succumbed to the sky cell and jumped to his death; he died, and with him died the terrible secret that weighed heavy on Alayne's heart. _Marillion killed Lady Lysa_, she told herself. _The singer killed her._

The septon began a hymn. It was sad and low, a song about death. Alayne sang along, softly. Alayne had a high, clear voice, much like the girl from a thousand years ago, the girl from the North. Sweetrobin had loved it when Alayne sang to him; even after his mother died and he developed a fear of singers, he had let Alayne hold him and sing him to sleep sometimes. That was when Alayne had liked Sweetrobin best; when he wasn't the Lord of the Vale, but a scared, sweet boy in her arms. He had been prone to fits of temper, true, but he had had moments of kindness as well. And he was only a child, coddled and sheltered by his mother for nearly his entire life. Alayne knew how it felt to believe that life was sweet and gentle, until she had been forced to see the truth of it. She had learned that life was bitter and unfair, and she had learned it in the most unforgiving way possible. _Life is not a song, sweetling_, Lord Baelish had told her once.

_No, _Alayne thought. _He told another girl. Not me. _

Alayne studied the back of Lord Baelish's dark head. He had never held any love for Sweetrobin, she knew. _He acts as convincingly as a mummer_, she thought, as she watched him bow his head piously for one of the septon's prayers.

Lord Baelish frightened Alayne. Though he had saved her from Kings Landing, from Joffrey and the queen and Lord Tyrion, her husband, he had not done it from the kindness of his heart, Alayne knew. Lord Littlefinger desired power, and Alayne knew of a girl who, if found, would be very valuable. Lord Baelish played the game of thrones with all the cleverness and caution of a Maester, and his designs were grand. She had seen the glint in his eyes when he talked of his ambitions; his eyes were like polished gemstones, shiny and hard. Alayne had come to realise that, while she was no longer in the gilded cage of Kings Landing, subject to the cruelties of the King, she was a prisoner all the same; the true difference was that, while Joffrey had been blindly cruel, Littlefinger was difficult to read, and concealed his true intentions behind a calm demeanour. And that was perhaps more dangerous, Alayne reflected.

The septon had finished speaking, and it was time to approach the coffin and bid a final farewell to the young Lord. Alayne waited until the Lords had finished, and approached last; she stood where his head would be, underneath the coffin lid, and ran her hand along the rough stone. She held a single flower in her hand, and wordlessly placed it on the coffin. It was a purple flower, Sweetrobin's favourite. When he had been well enough, Alayne would sometimes take him for walks in the garden, and he had always picked the purple flowers. The flowers had since died in the nightly frosts, but she had found a single small bloom, struggling to survive. _Like Sweetrobin_, she thought.

Robert Arryn had been a sickly boy, but with him, Alayne had felt less alone in the cold and mostly empty castle. And he had been her shield; a flimsy and sickly shield between her and the plans Lord Baelish had devised for her. He had been the Lord of the Vale, her powerless little Lord. Ever since his death, Alayne had felt the stirrings of Lord Baelish's plans being set into motion, like a sudden breeze stirring a previously still field. And with Sweetrobin's death, Lord Baelish had grown bolder; he was still cautious, but Alayne felt his eyes roving over her face more frequently, his eyes filled with hunger and desire. Whether he desired her or the power she would eventually obtain for him, Alayne couldn't say. He had pressed his lips against hers the previous night, as he had before, but he had been bolder then, too, letting his tongue touch her lips and placing his hand on her neck before pulling away. She had rinsed her mouth with wine to try and forget the taste of mint leaves. She remembered how the other girl had felt in Kings Landing, when she had still been young and naive, and her father had still had a head. When Petyr Baelish had looked at her, and she felt as though she was naked beneath his gaze.

Alayne felt a hand on her back, through her cloak. She turned, and Lord Baelish stood behind her, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes unreadable.

'The Lords Declarant are returning to the castle to toast to our little Lord's memory,' he said. 'Will you return with us, sweetling?' She knew what he wanted her to say, and as his dutiful daughter, she replied.

'Yes, father.' The wind still howled in the mountains, far away, crying for Sweetrobin.

'What a good daughter you are, Alayne,' he said, and placed his arm around her shoulders as he led her back to the warmth of the Eyrie.

Beneath her thick cloak, Sansa shivered.


End file.
